(pic from Yahoo!)
The mountains arrived in the Tour today, but for the major players not much changed when compared to the previous week’s flat stages. The Tour gently introduced a few mountains to shake up the peloton, making it easy for guys like Leipheimer and Mayo to catch back on after being shelled. After more than a week of pushing the big gears, the monster climbs are a shock to the system, so a stage like this is easy like Sunday morning for most of these guys.
The Col de Soudet and the Col de Marie Blanque were placed too early in stage to make any difference.
The result is a long breakaway with some potentially tough GC riders shooting up the ranks. My guess is that after spending most of the stage out ina break, Dessel and Mercado might just as easily shoot down the overall classification just as quickly as they shot up.
So nobody showed their cards today other than Michael Rasmussen putting in a small attack to scoop up a few points in the mountain competition. No surprise that he is on form, and he may be the catalyst to really shake thnings up tomorrow. Several climbers such as Rasmussen, Simoni and more can get a decent chance to shoot up the GC and hope for a podium spot since the wide open field of contenders does not seem contain very explosive climbers.
Tomorrow is a tough, epic Pyrennian stage, with the Col de Tourmalet, Col D’Aspin, Col de Peyresourde, Col du Portillion and the Puerto de Beret in the finale. All climbs are Cat 1, except for the Tourmalet which is HC. Expect Rasmussen to try a long break to make the Malliot au Poi his and either Phonak or T-Mobile to get shelled. My guess is that T-Mobile may not be as good in the mountains as they were in the first week.
The Tour Down Under tackled a few climbs today, and that broke up the final sprint. Robbie McEwen is in great form coming in third behind riders who are better climbers.
Gerrans , the young Australian on the AG2R squad is stepping up to the leaders jersey of the TDU. The stage win is significant since Gerrans beat defending champ Luis Leon Sanchez to take the leaders jersey.
1 Simon Gerrans (Aus) Ag2r Prevoyance in 3.38.33
2 Luis Leon Sanchez Gil (Spa) Liberty Seguros-Würth Team a 2″
3 Robbie McEwen (Aus) Davitamon-Lotto a 11″
4 William Walker (Aus) United Water-Australia U/23 a 37″
5 Gene Bates (Aus) UniSA-Australia a 1′39″
6 Samuel Dumoulin (Fra) Ag2r Prevoyance
7 Chris Jongerwaard (Aus) UniSA-Australia a 3′10″
8 Simon Clarke (Aus) South Australia.com-AIS Cycling
9 Sebastien Chavanel (Fra) Bouygues Telecom a 3′32″
10 Giovanni Visconti (Ita) Team Milram a 4′09″
TDU Official race report
http://www.tuttobiciweb.com/home.htm
Pic from Gazzetta dello sport
The ProTour is under pressure with the precarious relationship with the Organizers of the Grand Tours. RCS, the organizers of the Giro have decided to keep the split-stage format citing the fact that the Giro (along with the Tour de France and Vuelta Espana) will not be part of the ProTour, and so will not be bound by the rulings of the ProTour or the UCI. News today of the inclusion of AG2R as the 20th team to get a Four-Year as a top 20 squad can only degrade the standing of the Pro Tour as a serious top shelf cycling league.
AG2R made it to the top 20 not by performance, but by some serious sponsor money. The sponsor money was not enough to actually get top-shelf talent as they only signed Christophe Moreau and Francisco Mancebo. These are quality riders that mostly chase Tour de France and Vuelta Espana glory. These are two of three events that will NOT be included in the ProTour as it stands today. So where does that leave AG2R? Lots of money but not a huge amount of talent to support their entry to many of the top races on the calendar.
The inclusion of AG2R adds an unnatural balance to the nationality of teams in the ProTour. True, teams today offer a large mix of nationalities. CSC is not so much a Danish team as their Director Sportif. Discovery is not so American as it used to be. AG2R now will be the Fifth(!) French team to be included as a Top 20 ProTour Team. This is compared to Four Spanish Teams, one of which is slowly turning French (Illes Baleares going to Caisse D’Eparne) and Three Italian Teams. This is a drastic comparison to the performance standings that show Italy, Spain and the USA as the top nations getting results.
As mentioned before on Velochimp, the best option is to cut down the number of Teams in the ProTour to 16 or 18 and include wild-card teams that have more of a local interest. This would help to animate the races by including more competition that is not simply riding along or forced to perform.
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